Across most of healthcare’s history, care models have been heavily dictated by caregivers and government decisions. The advent of new technologies though, is changing everything. By Megan Williams, contributing writer

PREMIUM CONTENT

Webroot does not believe that businesses should have to choose between extortion and losing precious data. This quick guide is an abbreviated version of our technical white paper “A Guide to Avoid Being a Crypto Ransomware Victim” and covers a number of mitigation strategies that will protect data should there be a crypto ransomware attack.

Perhaps more than any other type of software solution a reseller can offer to its customers, endpoint security products are characterized by a huge gap between their minimal purchase prices and the enormous costs they can entail for clients if they fail to work properly. The financial benefits of retailing cybersecurity solutions are modest (typical direct purchase prices are $24/year per seat, with VAR cost roughly $12), while the potential losses suffered by a VAR’s customer due to malware infections can be devastating.

Using the Internet today is the single greatest risk factor to your employees’ devices becoming infected and your network being breached. It’s become especially risky for any organization with a highly mobile workforce, which these days is most of us. Recent research by Forrester 1 showed 60% of employees working from home a few times per month and 38% at least one day or more by week in organizations with over 1,000 employees. The risks from web usage are so high that security and risk professionals deem it critical that a secure web gateway should be an essential first line of defense.

Enterprise security organizations face a daily onslaught of external attacks. According to a recent survey by IBM X-Force and Verizon’s 2014 Data Breach Report, 92% of attacks are being perpetrated by outsiders (Figure 1). Because of this, organizations have to focus on how these attacks successfully penetrate their network perimeter security defenses.

Today, companies in all sectors have a massive demand for data. To succeed, they must be able to take in a large amount of data and process it in real-time with no room for delays, lags, or hiccups. As the demand for efficiency and fast processing times has risen, companies around the world have been forced to move beyond the relational databases of yesteryear and into new, more capable data processing methods.

Now that the holiday season has arrived, the shopping frenzy has begun with retailers offering not-to-be-missed deals shoppers searching online — both at home and on their work devices — for the best deals. But it’s not only consumers gearing up for the buying season. Cybercriminals are entering their busiest time of year, preying on people’s rush to snap up holiday savings anywhere they can.

Like most women who have been in the channel for many years, Theresa Caragol, Principal at TCC Consulting & AchieveUnite, began her career at the first link of the channel food chain and worked her way up. Her story is a familiar one for numerous women in the channel. This is the second of a four-part series. Click here for part one.

SPECIAL REPORTS

If you want to know more about EMV and how to maximize your payments-related revenue, this guide is for you. After surveying both small and large retailers on their top technology needs (and where they plan to spend), surveying our own readers, and studying analysts’ data on the market, we came up with a list of the four most important topics of today and the near future: payment processing (special focus on security/EMV and mobility), mobile POS, POS-as-a-Service, and customer experience/ engagement.

Many IT solutions providers, both VARs and software developers, rank dealing with payment security slightly higher than a trip to the dentist. It’s not something people want to spend time on. To most, payment security is not a money-making profit center. Additionally, the rules seem to be ever-changing and nearly impossible to get ahead of. To top it off, the bad guys always seem to be one step ahead.

Are your vendor partners merely providers of product for you to sell, or true partners that are walking with you hand-in-hand and working to help you succeed? If you didn’t answer “true partners,” it might be time to reevaluate the relationship.

Here are 2016's Best Channel Vendors, listed first by technology category (Business Continuity through VoIP) and then by technology subcategory. One of the main purposes of this special report is to give our resellers a guide to who their peers think are Best Channel Vendors.

2016 is just a few holiday parties away and will be here before we know it. This month prior is a good opportunity to take a step back and reflect on the past year. What has your company done well? Are there wins you should be celebrating? What will your company look like in the years to come? What have you struggled with? Are you taking steps to ensure that those same struggles don’t occur in 2016?

Healthcare IT continues to evolve and change, and IT solutions providers in this vertical need to address the challenges their clients face as they try to keep up with standards, regulations, and trends.

FEATURED SUPPLIERS

For more than 30 years, APG Cash Drawer has been designing and delivering cash drawers with a variety of size, color, interface, and integration options. An APG cash drawer will provide years of smooth, trouble free service with virtually no downtime, no service required, and no headaches. Our cash drawers are so well constructed and so reliable that our customers install them and forget them - even in the most demanding environments.

Harbortouch is a leading national provider of touch-screen point of sale (POS) systems and payment processing services. As pioneers of the “as a service” model, Harbortouch offers an unprecedented “free” POS program that allows the company’s sales partners to offer a full-featured POS system with no up-front costs.

We’ve spent more than 40 years helping lead the electronic payment revolution, and we remain at the industry’s forefront. Providing merchants and partners with seamless, secure solutions and the latest industry intelligence, Moneris helps the businesses we serve unlock new possibilities and take advantage of new avenues for growth.

ConnectWise is the leading business management solution designed exclusively for technology organizations, such as IT solution providers, MSPs, software companies, hardware/software resellers, and System Integrators.

WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO

The Business Solutions team considers the channel more than just “a market” or “an industry.” It’s our community, and we want everyone in our community to thrive with greater profits, predictable revenue, and a sustainable business model.

FEATURED PRODUCTS

APG’s Stratis™ tablet holder is designed for retailers who are installing mobile and/or Thin (Thinbility) iPad ® based point of sale applications. POS software is moving to tablets and to the cloud for easy accessibility and instant reporting. Designed to allow the retailer to take advantage of the small foot print tablet, the Stratis™ tablet holder adds an elegant look to your POS environment.

APG Cash Drawer introduces the BluePRO™ device — the 1st ever Bluetooth enabled cash drawer. BluePRO™ connects a low-cost, printer-kick cash drawer and pairs it with a mobile device. By creating a one-to-one relationship, retailers can now wirelessly synchronize and transfer data between a mobile device and the cash drawer. The BluePRO™ device achieves proximity when the mobile device comes within limited range of the drawer.

ABOUT BUSINESS SOLUTIONS

Welcome to BSMinfo, the online presence of Business Solutions magazine. If you are a value-added reseller (VAR), systems integrator, managed services provider (MSP), or independent software vendor (ISV), this is the site for you! Whether here online or in each month's issue of the magazine, we strive to deliver actionable information you can use to add complementary technologies to your portfolio and penetrate thriving vertical markets.